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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Fw: Ethiopia 3

I've been asked to be more descriptive about our Ethiopia travels and provide more detailed info, as a few online friends are very interested in travelling here.

So here's a few comparative prices.

Generally all restaurant prices will be plus service fee 10% and sales tax 15% so add approx 25% to anything on the menu.If we see a service fee in the bill, we rarely tip unless we've had great service.

Exchange rate is around 13.48-13.52 Bir to the US dollar.Banks give the best exchange rate.But hardly worth going out of your way to get to one.Our hotel was giving 13.5 and the bank 13.6.

A cup of coffee,-ask for Macchiato or Coffee with milk, 6.5 Bir to 7.95 Bir plus tips and tax , but still less than 1$ US!

But sightseeing by taxi, which is the way to go as everything is so spread out,and with the driver acting as a guide cost us 100Bir an hour.Public buses provide services to a few areas, but the bulk of the population move around in the masses of mini buses, or transit vans.Much like the South African method, where you hop aboard one that the driver yells out is going to such and such place,wait until it's full and away you go,dropping off and picking up as they go.It's rumoured that a few tourists who thought they'd fathomed the system out , disappeared from this world.......

Kay and I in Pretoria last year,, had quite an interesting experience taking one out to the outer suburbs but managed to get back to civilisation safely.The driver was really great and looked after us.Quite a memory.

Internet here is very slow as Dialup is still the norm.It's enough to do emails, but when you want to go to any websites, you'll wait for 3-5 minutes, if you do manage to get to it! And same time lag if you need to get to other pages on that site.

Our hotel is $45US a night for 2 persons in the room.Would have been much cheaper if we had booked direct rather than through our tour company,but Ras never answered our emails!

Sheraton $400 per person per night is looking pretty good, every time we think about a shower under our trickle irrigation system! We slept in until 7am and the water was much colder than other mornings.

Today is another grey dull day with rain looking likely.But we'll head out to do the Red Terror Martyrs' Museum, a memorial to the 68 government officials murdered by the socialist victors in the overthrow of the Haile Selassie government.The DERG as it was called were then rebelled against and the present government and peace has been maintained since 1991.And I guess therein lie a lot of Ethiopia's current woes.Trying to rebuild a country after years of conflict.

We have met our sponsored child Hanna Tesafaye, and all the family and staff that run the operation.But that's a story best kept until we can upload some photographs and do it justice.

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About Me

A custom shoemaker, slowly wearing out his tools. No sign of slowing down for this not so young traveller, but sometimes I just have to take time out to repair my worn out soles. They've been around, and it's time to talk of where they've been. Join us in our journeys, we'll learn more about wildlife conservation and social issues around this world, and maybe delve beyond the conscious